Marvan Attapattu succeeded
Hashan Tillekeratne as captain for this one-sided mismatch of a series that
soon led to Zimbabwe
withdrawing from Test cricket.

Already hopelessly weakened
by the gradual loss of most of its leading players in the previous three
years, the Zimbabwe Board now sacked 15 white players before the series began.
It was inevitable that Sri Lanka would
win both Tests and all five one-day internationals.The margin of victory in each Test match
was greater than an innings and 200 runs

Muralitharan had undergone testing at the University of Western
Australia biomechanics lab and was approved to
bowl again. He overhauled Courtney Walsh's record of Test 519 wickets during
the series and was feted on return to Colombo.

The Sri Lankans suffered from poor facilities and felt
the Zimbabwe Board were giving more attention to dealing with their players'
revolt than organising their tour facilities well.

On 1 April 2004 Marvan Atapattu
was named as captain. On 7 April a 16-man squad for the five one-day matches
was announced.

Test party announced : 25 April 2004.

The squad for the Test series was announced after a three-day
practice game, adding Samaraweera,Daniel andJayawardene to the squad. On 29 April, the names of three players who
would return home after the ODI series were announced.

Russel Arnold, Saman Jayantha and Nuwan Kulasekara returned to Sri Lanka at
the end of the five-match one-day series.

After ten hours of flying from Zimbabwe
on an Emirates Airlines jumbo, the Test party touched down at Bandaranaike International Airport
at 4 pm on 20 May.They were welcomed
by Government officials at the Airport and in honour of Muralitharan's
achievement were given a motorcade to Sri Lanka Cricket headquarters. It took
more than four hours for the procession to reach Maitland Place.